Out of Africa
by greatunironic
Summary: Trip is dead. Malcolm sees the world. [After TATV]


**Out of Africa**  
_Trip is dead. Malcolm sees the world. After TATV_

**Author:** greatunironic (or, the author formerly known as Meridian Siler)  
**Note:** I toyed around for a while with the idea of calling this 'Malcolm Reed and the World's Longest Road Trip', but then I wondered what really was the world's longest road trip and got distracted and decided to throw out the title. (And if anyone does happen to know what the world's longest road trip is, feel free to tell me.)_ --_ This was inspired largely by the poems of A.E. Housman; in particular, "Astronomy", "An Epitaph", "Epitaph on an army of mercenaries", "Here dead lie we because we did not choose", "Farewell to a name and a number", "'Tis five years since, An end,' said I" (read this one; it's very Malcolm) and "R.L.S."._ --_ It can be considered a semi-sequel to the slightly acid-trip like "A Gently Haunted House"._ --_ Because when I can't sleep, I either watch Iron Chef or write.

_

* * *

_

_Oh I will sit me down and weep  
__For bones in Africa._

"_Astronomy", A.E. Housman_

Ten weeks after Trip dies, Malcolm is living in a beach house in Northern California, not doing much of anything. He considers retiring from Starfleet. Madeline comes by the house regularly, her face bruised in ways they can't speak about because they are British and you don't talk about things like that. She moves in with Malcolm shortly after and it is not discussed.

"I'm going for a drive," Malcolm tells her one day. Madeline looks up from her work and asks him when he'll be back. Malcolm shrugs, playing with the keys as he holds them tightly in his fist. Madeline asks if he has any idea where he's going; he doesn't know that either.

Six state borders later, it occurs to Malcolm that he doesn't really care.

_-_

He says he'll be gone for a month; or, at least, that's what Malcolm tells Madeline from his hotel room in Colorado. He says he just needs some time to think and separate himself from what's going on. He doesn't believe what he says and neither does Madeline.

He tells her he'll see her soon.

_-_

The month turns into six and Malcolm decides to leave the Midwest and go down south. He has never seen all the States before, in person. He'd been to Florida once; he doesn't think he'll go again. But New Orleans and Atlanta hold a certain appeal to him, and he drives through Nebraska and Kansas, among others, to get there. It's nice, his solitary journey.

He's never felt this free before.

Malcolm writes to Madeline at the end of every month. He sends her Polaroid's and blank postcards from the places he's in. Lately, he's started picking up key chains with ornate M's engraved in them to send to her.

He lives and travels quite cheaply, even though he has a savings account that could more than support his passage. But it doesn't matter to Malcolm; he's just trying to find himself. He tends bar in Atlanta and gets a job in a blues joint in New Orleans playing the piano. He likes New Orleans the best and the people there like him too, so he stays there longer than any other state. He left Starfleet behind four states back.

There are women, here and there. He dates the old bar tender's daughter for a while. She's pretty; long blonde hair, bright eyes, pale skin. He leaves her, eventually, packing up his bags because this is all too comfortable. Malcolm leaves a lot of things behind. Traveling light is best.

He goes to the north and works at the front desk of a little hotel in Vermont. That doesn't last long.

_-_

In a year's time, he has been to every state in America at least once and he is still writing to Madeline. He wonders what she does with all the pictures.

Nevada, Malcolm's last state, gets boring after a week.

So he goes to Canada. It doesn't take him very long to get there: He takes back roads and speeds a lot. He's stopped five times because of it and, in Montana, Malcolm almost gets arrested. But he makes it to Canada and spends nine weeks exploring it.

Malcolm buys a cabin in the middle of nowhere and spends seven months there. It will be the second longest period of time he spends anywhere. He sends Madeline seven letters from there; she hasn't moved out of his house yet, and he hopes she doesn't. It's a nice house, people need to live there. It needs to be a home, like it never was for him.

He accumulates a good deal of stuff in his Canadian cabin. Nothing there, though, reminds him of his old life. It's better that way.

He meets another blonde there; her name is Donna. He thinks it may be love, this thing that he feels for her. But it could just be loneliness, instead. They feel a lot alike these days. But he gets along well with her and he makes her laugh, which is good, he supposes. But she can't make him laugh and he thinks that disappoints her, somehow. He wants to try to explain it to her, why no one can make him laugh anymore, but he doesn't.

How do you put words to heartbreak?

Donna takes it in stride and smiles for him when she or someone else makes a joke. She knows he was in Starfleet and she knows something terrible happened and that he doesn't talk about it, no matter how badly she wants him to and how she thinks it may make him feel a little better, but she forgives him for it. She loves him. It breaks her heart when he leaves.

Malcolm's sorry about it, he really is; he hates to hurt people, and Donna is _so_ nice. But he's too comfortable and he needs a break and something in him hurts when he's around her.

So he kisses her chastely and asks her to move on, for him. Though she's crying, she nods and Malcolm smiles at her, even though the hurt things in him twist maliciously when he does. He jumps in his car and drives away. He doesn't look back. He's going to Mexico; he hears it's nice.

Eventually, Malcolm decides it was Donna's hair. It reminded him of Trip.

_-_

Mexico is hard: Malcolm doesn't speak the language and he stands out sorely amongst the people, with his compulsively brushed hair and beard and his endlessly pale skin, a reminder from the seven months spent in the woods up north. But he sort of likes it there, regardless, and he shaves his beard and throws away his comb. He surfs a lot and learns rudimentary Spanish. He gets a tan. He works in a car repair shop for a little while and lives in a rundown hotel.

He takes a month and backpacks the Yucatan, goes to Honduras and to Guatemala, to Belize and El Salvador, to Nicaragua and Costa Rica and Panama, before returning to the hotel and his job at the car shop.

By the time he is ready to leave, Malcolm has hair down to his shoulders, wavy and thick, a tattoo, two pairs of Birkenstocks, and an assortment of woven jewelry.

It has been five months since Canada, two years since he left his beach house in California, and he goes to South America.

_-_

He hits the Caribbean first, island hopping for a month, before he finally makes his way to Columbia. He sold his old car before the island hopping and buys a new one in Columbia. He stays for a week before driving off to Venezuela, a week there too. Then it is Guyana and Cayenne and French Guiana; always a week in each. He spends two weeks in Brazil then goes to Ecuador through Peru and then back through Peru again. Then there is Bolivia and Paraguay and Uruguay and Argentina. Malcolm has a lover in almost each country; he doesn't learn their names.

Chile is his favorite. There, he surfs and plays football and the kids he lives near call him _El Soldado_ because he stopped that_ hombre_ _loco _who tried to hold up the corner store. The mothers like him, even if he's a bit odd. But he only stays three weeks. They like him too much.

Malcolm is in South America for four months before he wonders what Australia and the Oceania are like.

He sells the second car and throws away the Birkenstocks. He catches a plane.

_-_

On the plane, he writes a letter.

Malcolm wonders again what Madeline is doing with the things he sends her.

_-_

Australia has kangaroos, which fascinate Malcolm, so he spends a lot of time at the zoo. At first, he gets weird looks but then everyone grows accustom to him and he becomes almost like a new exhibit: the strange man with his hair in a ponytail and five-o'clock shadow with the English accent. He considers getting his guns out of storage and giving them a _real_ exhibit.

But then he remembers why they're in storage in the first place and promptly forgets the thought. Malcolm's gotten good at forgetting. Someday, he can forget why they are in storage in the first place. But that takes a lot of effort so he merely chooses to not remember, which is a lot like forgetting except that the memory is still there.

He travels to New Zealand and does some skydiving and bungee-jumping, sending Madeline a picture of it, before heading out over the rest of Oceania.

After six months there, he leaves, having bought and sold a third car and yet one more new wardrobe of clothes. Malcolm exits west, towards Asia.

But he doesn't stay long there, in Asia and the islands surrounding it—he's been before, when he was younger, and it doesn't appeal to him much. So he goes into Russia and Eastern Europe after two months.

It's been three years since he has last been in California and he can almost forget that too.

_-_

But there is still the feeling of sun on his skin and sand between his toes.

But that could just be somewhere else with sun and sand.

But the memories are getting jumbled.

But Malcolm doesn't care.

_-_

Russia's like being tossed in with wolves. It is cold and large and he doesn't speak the language—he's used to that, though, and all he really needs to do is say, "Englishman," and he can get what he wants.

He spends a long time just wandering, growing another beard and wearing a fur hat that smells like…it is best not to think about it much. He wears a canvas backpack and kills his own food and he fancies that maybe he was born to late in time—or too early. It gets confusing, time.

Some of Eastern Europe is the same but he likes it there, despite it all being like tossed in with wolves.

He flits around, moving from place to place on his feet. Sometimes he'll catch a train—but he prefers to walk. There's something about having solid ground beneath you. It reminds him of where he is, when he is. He likes that. Even though he knows he walks like a land-trapped sailor, his body always yearning for the awkward balance of the space.

Malcolm's favorite place in all of it is Prague: The winding streets, the small shops. It's lovely. When he gets there, he cuts off his ponytail and shaves his beard. He gets a new tattoo (his total is three, the one from Mexico and another from a drunken night that seems like a very long time ago). He sits out in cafes and wonders on the life he has lead. Maybe he should write a book; but that would involve remembering wouldn't it? And he can do without that.

Besides, he would have to kill anyone who read it.

There is a succession of blondes with wide smiles and maybe he's looking for a replacement, a new place to call—

But there's nothing that can stop up the ache so the line just keeps going and he doesn't care.

He gets an apartment in Prague, a nice little place, and he doesn't work at all in the five months he spends there so he doesn't have much furniture but it's a place where he can hang his hat and he's almost sad when he leaves it.

A year and a half passes among the sovereignties of Eastern Europe. His legs are stronger than ever before from the walking but he dreams of stars shooting past his window and a voice he hasn't heard in a while.

_-_

France calls. And Germany and Italy and Norway, Finland, Holland, Latvia, Estonia, others. Malcolm repairs cars in Germany, works at a bookstore in Italy, gardens in France, plays piano is Latvia, tends bar in Estonia. There are odd jobs everywhere else and there really hasn't been anything Malcolm _hasn't_ done now, a regular jack of all trades. A long time ago, that would have worried him. Then again, a long time ago—or had it only been five years? Ah, time—he had thought he'd be doing the same thing all his life and stars had shot past him windows and he had a best friend.

Repairing a bike in Holland while smoking a joint, Malcolm feels as if he has lived a long, long time.

_-_

He doesn't go back to England. Why should he? It's nothing but rain and clouds and giant clocks. (Some times there's sun and birds and laughing children but he's got enough of those memories.)

Instead, Malcolm goes to India and drinks tea. He goes to the Middle East and marvels at the mosques and land marks and the cities that bloomed like flowers up through the sand. Not that there was much of the stuff left, for the cities. But there are only a few months there and he trips into Africa without even realizing it.

_-_

Africa is hot and dry around the edges, cold and wet in the middle.

(Malcolm writes that to Madeline; back in the U.S., Madeline reads it and wishes she could write back to her brother and inform him of the metaphorical and psychological connotations of that sentence—like a sentence Malcolm once said about something he ate once, crunchy on the outside, gooey on the inside, and Madeline had told him that was him; but Madeline was in California and Malcolm was in Africa and she had no idea where.)

He runs around the bush, or what is left of it, because it's wild and untamed, like hearts and worlds he once knew. He gets a job, too, teaching English in this school and he makes a lot of friends—or the equivalent to friends for him, these days—there, the students, the teachers, the parents.

Malcolm gets invited to parties a lot, by the parents and teachers, because they have a vague idea of what he was once, and he tells great stories.

_-_

Everyone thinks the stories are true, what with his past.

Sometimes, they are.

Usually, Malcolm just likes to practice his fiction skills.

_-_

But there's one party though, one party, and, there he is, in the middle of telling about the time he got stuck up a tree in his shorts, being chased by these blue cat-like things.

Everyone laughs when he finishes, because _blue cat things_ and does it get any better?

Malcolm raises his glass and, in the light, there may be a curve to his lips that there hasn't been in a very long time but that's probably just the light after all. He retreats to the drink table when he bumps into her.

"Oh, shit," she says, looking down at the water spilt across her dress.

"Damn," replies Malcolm, picking up a cloth and handing it to her. "I'm terribly sorry."

"Not you're problem." The woman dabs at herself. "You know, this always happens."

"What?" he asks.

"Me getting something spilt on me," she says. "Every single party I go to, I get some strange thing spilt on me."

"What a coincidence," he quips. "Every single party _I_ go to, I spill something on some strange woman."

She breaks out in laughter, her brown hair waving behind her in ripples, like the curve of an ocean's wave. She asks: "Never gotten pushed into a pool, though, have you?"

"No," he says, "never."

"Well, then, I win," she replies.

"However," Malcolm interjects, "I did push someone into a rather thorn-riddled bush once."

The woman laughs again and tells him her name is Julia Bartlett-Hayes.

"Malcolm Reed," he says, and tries to memorize her movements and her sound.

_-_

Later, he'll recall this, the first time he met Julia, and he will remember being struck by her dark hair and her thin, sarcastic, mocking smile.

A smile that makes him smile, despite—a smile that wasn't a trick of the light.

_-_

They go out on a date. He learns that she's a doctor, practicing at some free clinic, and that she's from America, the Midwest, Montana. He tells her he almost got arrested once there. She tells him it wouldn't have been so bad had he, that they have nice jail cells there. He learns the sobering fact that she's Major Jake Hayes' little sister, her name hyphenated to be closer with their dead mother.

Malcolm tells her that he was born in England, spent some time in Malaysia. He says he's been teaching since he moved here, that he's been traveling a lot.

Julia asks why and he replies that he was in Starfleet, once, on the _Enterprise._ She blinks and doesn't ask anymore questions about it.

And, slowly, like dancing a waltz in water, he falls in love with her.

_-_

They do the normal things that couples do: They go out to the movies, to the theatre; they go to art museums, to book readings; they go to parties of mutual friends, of one of their friends, of their parents' friends. Once, Julia comes with him to chaperone Malcolm's school's prom.

(One of the graduating seniors walks up to Malcolm while he's watching Julia swing dance with one of Malcolm's colleagues and the senior says he did good; Malcolm thinks so too.)

Julia gets invited to a wedding of one of her friends, is asked to be a bridesmaid, and Malcolm comes along as her _plus one_ to everything. She says she likes to show him off, but Malcolm knows it's because she hates weddings and wants an excuse to get out of there quickly. Or to go and make out in the coat check, which has happened three times now since they have started dating and one of those times ended up with a very embarrassed Julia, an equally traumatized Malcolm, and one cackling grandmother.

They don't like to talk about it.

_-_

He's not sure when it happens, but it happens, and, one morning, Malcolm wakes up and has a toothbrush in Julia's bathroom. And then more things start to appear and Malcolm is spending more time in her house than he is in his own.

_Huh_, he thinks one morning, staring at a closet space filled with his clothes, after he had gotten dressed from there without even thinking about it. Julia comes up behind him as he stares, a piece of toast in her mouth, and she dodges into the closet, grabs a pair of shoes, and dodges back out. She takes the toast out with her free hand and kisses his cheek.

"I've got to go to work," she says after the kiss, flopping down on the bed and trying to put her shoes on one handed.

"Okay," he says. "I do too."

She takes a bite of her toast and continues her battle with the shoes. "We're still on for the ballet tonight, right?"

He nods and, without saying a word, goes over to help her put her shoes on. She finishes her toast and leans down to kiss his mouth. She leaves a burnt taste, with butter and strawberry jam and smoke, and he's never found smoke all that attractive until he met her.

"Great," she says, "love you!" And then she's out the door.

Malcolm stays on the floor for a long moment. "Huh."

_-_

When they get back from the ballet, Julia sits down on the bed and stares at Malcolm for a long moment while he takes off his tie. He's saying something about the ballet, about how he liked the lines, and she just says, "You look tired," as she rolls off her stockings. Malcolm stares at her pale ankles before kissing her lipsticked mouth.

In the morning, he wakes up with the waxy taste on his lips and her head on his chest. When she wakes up, he's making coffee in the next room, toast and eggs already set on the table. He still looks tired and Julia vows to get him to stay in the bed one morning.

_-_

She does. Because Malcolm's growing and he realizes a part of him might just need her and that parts of him might just been mending.

It could be, though, that he's just gotten really good at acceptance.

_-_

Malcolm and Julia go to the grocery store together and it is all very familial but Malcolm's growing and he forgets about it, just like he forgets to go back to his apartment, like he forgets to pay his rent. He's been forgetting about a lot of things, but he's strangely okay with it all.

Except, of course, until she says, "We need milk," and then he stops forgetting, then it all hits him.

They're lying in bed together, staring at the ceiling and Julia just casually says that they need milk again and Malcolm assures her that he'll get it later, don't worry, because it's the summer and school's off. And she rolls out of bed to get ready for work. Malcolm's entire body is suddenly frozen beneath the sheets, his mind running around with revelations.

He's going to be buying milk. Milk, she and he, like a family. Like people with futures. Like people who live past their fortieth birthdays.

He needs to get out of there.

_-_

Julia comes in when he's packing his bags. She doesn't announce her presence, but Malcolm knows she's there, standing in the doorway, not moving, not speaking. His back stiffens and his hands freeze halfway through folding a shirt. He looks down and tilts his head to the side, just enough that he can see her sandaled feet. He says, lowly, "I'm sorry. I can't—"

He falls silent, not able to bring to rest of the words to life with his mouth. Julia swallows audibly. Malcolm turns his head and himself so he can look at her straight on, even though it is like sticking him with a thousand pins as he watches her heart break, falling and shattering against the floor like a glass cup.

"Yeah." Her mouth works, trying to say something else, but all that comes out eventually is another, "Yeah."

She nods at him sharply, and runs away from him. She does it first, so then it maybe won't hurt so badly when he does it to her. It's too late for that because her glass heart lies in shards like beads of water across the floor.

Malcolm watches as she goes, blinks, and goes back to his packing.

He leaves a lot behind.

_-_

Malcolm goes to Prague again.

He misses Africa.

_-_

"You're back," says Madeline, the screen door closed between them. She doesn't sound surprised, but then nothing had ever really surprised Malcolm's little sister.

"I had to return sometime, didn't I," replies Malcolm eventually, his voice even. They continue staring at each other.

Madeline opens the screen door and grabs her brother by his collar. She pulls him into her arms and holds him there for a long time. Malcolm wonders when these maternal instincts of hers kicked in; they're confusing him. She lets him go and they keep standing in the hall.

She suddenly lifts up her left hand for Malcolm's inspection: "Look."

Malcolm stares at the diamond ring there. He blinks twice; it's a big ring, shiny and pretty and everything Madeline ever dreamed up when she was a little girl planning her wedding. He says, "Nice. Did you steal it?"

"I got married again." She says it is the simplest thing in the whole wide world. When he thinks about it, Malcolm reaches the conclusion that it kind of is. And he should know, what with his new found perspective on the world and everything. But then Malcolm remembers his baby sister's last marriage, the marriage that wasn't every little girl's dream, and obviously that memory shows on his face, because Madeline defends, "Mark's not Paul."

Malcolm gives her a once over, checking for bruises, and Madeline sighs, put on, but undergoes the inspection. There are things sisters do for their brothers, like waiting, for six minutes or six years. Malcolm concedes, albeit bitterly and with narrowed eyes, "You don't _look_ battered."

"'Cause I'm not," she says snappishly. "Mark's from Southern California; I don't think he even knows _how_ to throw a punch."

"Okay," he says, still bitter. Madeline shakes her head, blonde hair in rolling waves, like an ocean he used to wet his feet in, and she moves down the hallway, fully expecting him to follow her.

He wants to shout after her that he doesn't blindly follow anyone anymore, not since the end of time in space, but her blonde hair calls to him like memory and his knees are weak with the novels in the back of his mind, all those words of his past written in different hands. He follows her now, because memory dictates and his heart is heavy.

She's making tea in the kitchen—his kitchen, once—and he sits down at the table, looking. She kept a lot of things the same, but then again things are changed too. The colours of the curtains, the plates—it's a lot cleaner too, not as much dust.

"Mark's at work," she says casually, putting cups on the table. The kettle whistles behind her and she pulls it off. She says, "He really wanted to meet you, before we got married. But your letter had come a week before, from France—why, may I ask, were there dirt stains on it?—and I didn't know if you were still there."

"I was a gardener in France," he says. "And I think I was in Germany then. I would have liked to have met him too."

"You think?" she asks. "You think? My God, what _have_ you been doing?"

"I've been seeing the world," he replies. "Time gets a bit blurry in between the time changes."

She shakes her head. "And to think, I missed you."

He drinks his tea and isn't sure if he's supposed to say "I missed you" back.

_-_

Mark, as it turns out, is really _a surfer dude_.

Malcolm stares between him and Madeline and his memory of Paul before laughing so hard he makes himself sick.

Madeline is displeased and Mark says, "That is _righteous._ What have you been eating in Africa? Looks tasty." And then, leaving the bathroom, he trips over the door stop before exiting with a sheepish smile.

Leaning his head against the toilet and laughing again, Malcolm decides he _really_ likes Mark.

_-_

Madeline cooks a big dinner for the three of them, stirring up everything she can possibly think of her two men will like. (Malcolm doesn't tell her that he finds the stuff too bland for his tastes and not burnt enough; he's gotten used to strong spices and the taste of smoke—a taste he's trying to forget. So he smiles and thanks her and asks for more.)

Curious about Malcolm's life way out there among the continents, Mark asks about it. He asks why Malcolm went. He asks if it was better than space.

Malcolm tells him: "I figured maybe I should explore my own planet, after all these years."

And he wants to tell Mark that nothing is better than space, nothing can ever surpass the feeling of zero-g and alien bars. He wants to tell him that, even if you think you're about to die in a tiny little enclosed ship, nothing is better than space, especially if you've got a good friend with you.

Except—he's not so sure anymore if _nothing_ is better than space.

So he says, "It's different. Each has its own charms."

"What was your favorite place, of the ones you've visited? Here on Earth?"

"Prague," says Malcolm, eating a strawberry. His heart feels vaguely hollow and his fingers look like they're bleeding. "Prague is very nice."

Mark asks more questions, ever curious like a child, eyes filled with wonder, and Malcolm replies. He tells Mark about his old apartment, bookstores he went to, museums. Especially museums, because there was one with a very fascinating exhibit on the bone structure of man but, as he says the words, Malcolm thinks in his head: The most important bones are not just in Prague.

Because there are bones buried about the world and ashes strewn in space. And none of these belong to Malcolm, except some stardust that he loved—that he loves—and, maybe, someday, a set of bones down in Africa.

He will weep for the stardust and bones, though he does not know why because those things mean they're finally free.

And together.

"Sounds fascinating," comments Madeline.

Malcolm blinks. "It is. It is."

_-_

They make the guestroom bed together, mechanically.

"So, did you find yourself?" Madeline asks, her hands smoothing out the wrinkles in the sheets.

"Yeah," Malcolm tells her as he fluffs a pillow.

"Funny," she comments absently. "Because if you have, you sound like you've lost yourself again."

_-_

Malcolm is there for two months. He reconnects with a few people: he sees Phlox at a market—to his eternal surprise; he runs into Hoshi and her funny husband, whose wedding Malcolm managed to attend only by chance, at a restaurant; and he literally bumps into Jon Archer (and his wife and twin sons) on the street. They talk for an hour and Jon spends most of that time apologizing.

He plays a lot of cards with Mark and, once Mark discovers that Malcolm surfs, he drags him to the beach every morning at four a.m. Mark owns a little restaurant on the beach and sometimes Malcolm helps him out there, when he can. (Which is usually when Malcolm isn't up to all hours, just sitting on the beach, drinking and thinking.)

But he and Madeline—they spend a lot of time staring at each other, like they are alien bodies, wandering stars that just happen to trip into each other's orbits.

But they are brother and sister.

Maybe Malcolm just feels alien, in America.

_-_

One morning, after Malcolm and Mark wander in from the beach and Mark goes for a shower, Malcolm goes in for tea. He sits down and lets Madeline pour him a cup.

She asks, "What do you miss most?"

"About what?" he replies.

"About traveling," she says. "About seeing the world, the sky, the space. What do you miss most about not staying in one place?"

Malcolm thinks about it. "Not much."

Madeline lobs a piece of toast at his head half-heartedly. "Liar."

"I miss the people," he admits, voice soft. "I miss seeing people from different places. I miss—I miss making connections."

"Connections?"

He thinks about Trip, of that connection made and lost, of the one who made him feel alive. Maybe it was better, he supposes, to have loved and lost, and never to have loved at all but—

But then he thinks about the _other_ connection, the one that made him feel alive _all over again_ and—

He leans his chin into the palm of his hand and closes his eyes: "There was a woman and—"

"And?" asks Madeline.

"There was a woman," he repeats, opening his eyes.

After a while when Malcolm doesn't say anything else, Madeline grabs his wrist. "Malcolm, what in the world are you talking about?"

He says once more, "There was a woman," and his eyes are wide open. He gets up and Madeline lets go of him. "I have to get some milk. I don't know when I'll be back."

"Okay." She nods.

He leaves and he really doesn't know. It may be hours or it may be years. He may bring someone home with him or he may just bring another broken heart and another sad chapter in his book. But he doesn't know and all that matters is that he's trying and Madeline will keep the light on for him.

The screen door swings shut behind him and Madeline watches him go.

_-_

For the first time in six years, Malcolm Reed has some place he needs to be.

_-_

He waits outside the door for a long moment before opening it; she never did lock the door at night. He always chastised her for it, saying that one day someone was going to break in and steal everything. Or kill her. Julia had looked at him, blinked, and said she had him to protect her.

She's sitting at the kitchen table, reading the paper,and looks up as he enters. Malcolm drops the carton of milk on the table, and it stands between them, like a wall, like a peace offering. Malcolm sits down and they both stare at the milk.

Finally, Julia reaches out and takes it. She cradles it against her body, holding onto it like it is the most precious thing in the world, a token for luck.

"Took you long enough," she says.

"Sorry," says Malcolm; "I took the scenic route home."


End file.
